Feds to hire 3,500 cybersecurity pros by year's end

Last October, the U.S. government began hiring 6,500 new cybersecurity IT professionals. It has hired 3,000 so far, and plans to hire another 3,500 by January 2017, the White House said Tuesday.

The government is now trying to improve its recruiting and retention of cybersecurity professionals. This includes finding ways to improve government pay, which can be well below the private sector.

This strategy was detailed Tuesday in a White House memo. In it, officials called for expanded job recruiting campaigns "in order to raise awareness of employment opportunities and compete for top cybersecurity talent," Shaun Donovan, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Beth Cobert, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management and federal CIO Tony Scott wrote in the memo.